Gandolf? Inquiring nerds need to know. - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Child of the 7th Age · 05-22-2002, 09:43 AM

Lush -- That was observent of you to notice this. I've heard of the poem but am not that familiar with it. If your brain has cleared from the party (mine hasn't), do you have a line or two? Was it the bishop's name?

I did check out what Shippey says in The Road to Middle Earth. This is the book I use when I want to understand where a word or name comes from. Like Tolkien, Shippey was a philologist. So here goes more than you probably every wanted to know!

Shippey says Tolkien often made names in the Hobbit by taking a common thing and capitalizing it to turn it into a person or place, e.g., The Hill or Bywater where Bilbo lives. He does this not only with English but words from various languages. Shippey says Beorn, Gollum,Gandalf, and the Necromancer are all descriptions of persons rather than actual names.

The name "Gandalfr" appears in the Icelandic text Dvergatal (don't ask me what that is!)in a listing of dwarves. The names Thrainn, Thorinn, and Thror also appear, and Tolkien ended up using those. Anyways, Shippey says Tolkien was suspicious about "Gandalfr" because -alfr was an Elvish ending.

So he undoubtedly went to the ancient Icelandic dictionary and discovered "gandr" means "an object used by a sorcerer" and "gandalfr" means wizard. Then he decided to use it as a descriptive name.

Tolkien also knew that, in ancient lore, the most common object used by a wizard was a staff. This is why, when Bilbo first saw Gandalf in the Hobbit, he describes him only as "an old man with a staff".

Even though this is pretty complicated, Shippey usually knows what he is talking about, since he understands Tolkien as a philologist. Does anything from your poem tie into the meaning of these same words?
sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

05-22-2002, 09:43 AM	#2
Child of the 7th Age Spirit of the Lonely Star Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 5,133	Lush -- That was observent of you to notice this. I've heard of the poem but am not that familiar with it. If your brain has cleared from the party (mine hasn't), do you have a line or two? Was it the bishop's name? I did check out what Shippey says in The Road to Middle Earth. This is the book I use when I want to understand where a word or name comes from. Like Tolkien, Shippey was a philologist. So here goes more than you probably every wanted to know! Shippey says Tolkien often made names in the Hobbit by taking a common thing and capitalizing it to turn it into a person or place, e.g., The Hill or Bywater where Bilbo lives. He does this not only with English but words from various languages. Shippey says Beorn, Gollum,Gandalf, and the Necromancer are all descriptions of persons rather than actual names. The name "Gandalfr" appears in the Icelandic text Dvergatal (don't ask me what that is!)in a listing of dwarves. The names Thrainn, Thorinn, and Thror also appear, and Tolkien ended up using those. Anyways, Shippey says Tolkien was suspicious about "Gandalfr" because -alfr was an Elvish ending. So he undoubtedly went to the ancient Icelandic dictionary and discovered "gandr" means "an object used by a sorcerer" and "gandalfr" means wizard. Then he decided to use it as a descriptive name. Tolkien also knew that, in ancient lore, the most common object used by a wizard was a staff. This is why, when Bilbo first saw Gandalf in the Hobbit, he describes him only as "an old man with a staff". Even though this is pretty complicated, Shippey usually knows what he is talking about, since he understands Tolkien as a philologist. Does anything from your poem tie into the meaning of these same words? sharon, the 7th age hobbit [ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ] [ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ] __________________ Multitasking women are never too busy to vote.